DYNAMIC SCIENCE FICTION

DYNAMIC SCIENCE FICTION ,
was a pulp magazine which published six issues from December
1952 to January 1954. It was a companion to Future Science
Fiction, and like that magazine was edited by Robert W.
Lowndes and published by Louis Silberkleit. It published
stories by some well-known authors, including "The Duplicated
Man" by Lowndes and James Blish, and "The Possessed" by
Arthur C. Clarke. It was launched at the end of the pulp era,
and when Silberkleit decided to convert Future to a digest
format in 1954, he decided not to do the same with Dynamic,
simply cancelling the magazine.

Although science fiction (sf) had been published before the
1920s, it did not begin to coalesce into a separately
marketed genre until the appearance in 1926 of Amazing
Stories, a pulp magazine published by Hugo Gernsback.
By the end of the 1930s the field was booming. Between
early 1939 and mid-1940 publisher Louis Silberkleit launched
three sf pulp magazines: Science Fiction, Future Fiction, and
Science Fiction Quarterly. All three had ceased publication
by the end of World War II, killed by a combination of
falling sales and wartime paper shortages. In 1950 and 1951
Silberkleit revived Future Fiction, and Science Fiction
Quarterly, and the following year he launched Dynamic Science
Fiction, with the first issue dated November 1952. All
three of the magazines were edited by Robert W. Lowndes, who
had also edited most of the earlier issues for Silberkleit.
In mid-1953 Silberkleit cut rates and slowed down payment to
contributors as a result of falling circulation. By this time
Silberkleit was
experimenting with the digest format for Science Fiction
Stories, and he soon cancelled Dynamic Science Fiction,
leaving only Science Fiction Quarterly in pulp format.

Silberkleit initially paid reasonably good rates, and Lowndes
was able to obtain some good quality material. Some of the
better-known stories include Arthur C. Clarke's "The
Possessed" (March 1953); Lester del Rey's "I Am Tomorrow"
(December 1952), and James Blish and Lowndes' novel The
Duplicated Man (August 1953, with Lowndes' name concealed
by a pseudonym, "Michael Sherman"). Lowndes also published
some good quality nonfiction, including two long critical
essays by James E. Gunn, "The Philosophy of Science Fiction"
(serialized in the March and June 1953 issues), and "The Plot
Forms of Science Fiction" (serialized in the October 1953
and January 1954 issues). These four articles formed
Gunn's Master of Arts thesis; Gunn subsequently became a
prominent sf critic.